page_title: Rheda-Wiedenbrück
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rheda-Wiedenbrück / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Rheda-Wiedenbrück: Rathausplatz mit renoviertem Rathaus und Stadtbibliothek
context_page_description: Rheda-Wiedenbrück is a town in the district of Gütersloh, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
context_section_description: It is suspected that in 785 a first small church was built in Wiedenbrück. Excavations show the emergence of a transept basilica built after 900. The dendrochronological analysis of two tree coffins found north of the Saint Aegidius church resulted in a dating to the years 907/923 and 926/42. Rheda was documented at the latest in 1088 and earliest in 1085. Since its first mentioning in 1170 until 1807/1815, the castle or the later Rheda Castle was the center of the Rheda ruling region.
  Wiedenbrück was the seat of the Office Reckenberg and thus an exclave of the Bishopric of Osnabrück.
  Emperor Otto granted the rights of market, coin and customs law for Wiedenbrück to the bishop of Osnabrück in the year 952. Several certificates issued by [[Otto_III,_Holy_Roman_Emperor>Otto III. (HRE)]] in Wiedenbrück in 985 are known. It is therefore assumed that a royal court existed in Wiedenbrück at that time.
  In 1225 bishop Engelbert of Osnabrück took over the ancient legal court responsibility for Wiedenbrück and other cities. This is one of the starting points of the development of the Bishopric of Osnabrück to a territorial state of the Bishop of Osnabrück. The oldest surviving coins from Wiedenbrück are dated 1230. In 1231 Wiedenbrück was proclaimed civitas. Aldermen were elected to the Court and a seal was announced. In 1249 the new town was founded and a year later castle Reckenberg was mentioned for the first time.
  Around 1462 a first constitution was drafted, based on the constitution of Osnabrück. In 1543 Wiedenbrück was reformed by Hermann Bonnus, a representative of the Bishop Franz of Waldeck. By 1565 Wiedenbrück was predominantly Lutheran. In the same year the boundaries between the Office Reckenberg to which Wiedenbrück counted, and the adjacent Rheda were established in the so-called Bielefeld recess, as two independent sovereign areas were first recognized.
  After first steps for a Counter-Reformation were taken in 1624/1625, Wiedenbrück was occupied in 1626 during the Thirty Years' War by the Danes . When the Bishop Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg assumed office in 1628, he continued the Counter-Reformation.
  In 1637 Wiedenbrück established one of the oldest high schools in the region, the Gymnasium Marianum, a Latin School and forerunner of the current Ratsgymnasium high school in Wiedenbrück. The Franciscan monastery was founded in 1644 by Bishop Franz Wilhelm. Three years later, in July 1647 Wiedenbrück was taken by the Swedes, but cleared after dismantling of the fortress within two months. When in 1648 in Münster and Osnabrück the Peace of Westphalia was negotiated, this did require the alternation of a Catholic and a Lutheran bishop in the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg for the Bishopric of Osnabrück.
  In 1664, prompted by Ernst August I., the refortification of the city began. In 1716 the last urban copper coins were minted. In 1726, a new office building was constructed on the Reckenberg.
  As a result of the conversion of bishopric Osnabrück into a principality, Wiedenbrück was attached to the house of Hanover in 1802. In 1807 the city became part of the Kingdom of Westphalia. The chapter of fellows of collegiate  was disbanded in 1810, and the Office Reckenberg with Wiedenbrück were ceded to Prussia at the Congress of Vienna in 1816 and assigned to the new province of Westphalia. Wiedenbrück thus separated from the Diocese of Osnabrück, the Catholic communities of the former Office Reckenberg came to the Archdiocese of Paderborn.
  In the early morning hours of 10 November 1938 members of the SA, who had previously gathered in the adjacent restaurant Neuhaus, set the Rheda synagogue on fire. The remains were demolished and the property subsequently sold. In 
  1938 the federal highway A2 was opened to traffic. The highway was not, as is sometimes falsely claimed built almost exactly on the border between Rheda Wiedenbrück, but crosses it several times in different city areas.
  In 1940, Field Marshal Hermann Goering ordered the confiscation of all bronze church bells, which were to be used for arms manufacturing. From 1816 u
caption: Renovated city hall with city library in Rheda
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